Northampton City Council to vote on borrowing $4 million more for $17.6 million police station

This is an architect's rendering of a new police station currently under construction in Northampton.

NORTHAMPTON – The City Council plans to vote Thursday on a request to authorize another $4 million in borrowing for a new police station, but the agenda item doesn’t mean the cost of the project has gone up.

According to Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz, the $17.6 million project is on target and perhaps even under budget. The financial order is simply a book-keeping matter designed to spread the cost out over a longer period of time. In separate votes, the council has previously authorized the borrowing of $13.6 million for construction of the facility. It needs to authorize the city to borrow the remaining $4 million to finish the job.

“You don’t want to borrow more money than you need,” said Finance Director Susan Wright. As Wright explained it, the wiser practice is to borrow money as needed during the course of the project. With the first phase nearing completion, it’s time for the city to seek the rest of the funding.

Sienkiewicz said the project has gone smoothly, thus far. Workers have already poured the foundation and three of the four walls and put in place the footings for the steel skeleton. The beams for that part of the job are scheduled to start going up at the beginning of next month.

Earlier this week, the crew also poured the concrete floor for the basement firing range. Although police want the feature, it was not accounted for in the $17.6 million budget. However, Sienkiewicz is optimistic that the money will be available from the contingency fund, which has not been tapped to date.

“We haven’t spent a dime out of the contingency fund,” he said. “It would be nice to have that pot of money at the end of the rainbow.”

Contingency funds are often used during excavation, when workers most frequently encounter problems. The police station project has already passed that stage without a glitch. The firing range requires a $75,000 air-handling unit that would be located on the roof. The chief hopes there will be enough money left over for that item. He said he would have to seek other funding sources for the specialized equipment that goes with the range.